Why we need IPv6

What is IP address?

Instead of technical definition let’s see the simple definition of IP address. An IP address is a unique series of numbers/digits that tells us where a device is on the Internet network. It is an identifier for your computer or device when you are in network. Just like a mailing address helps you to communicate with your friends, an IP is provided to computer so it can communicate with different networked computing devices.

Why do we need IPv6?

Every internet connected computing device gets a unique number known as an “IP address” that connects it to the global network.

The problem is that the present Internet addressing system, IPv4, has capacity for about 4.2 billion addresses. These addresses are not enough for the increasing number of new devices like computers, smart phones, TVs, smart watches, cars and any other devices which are ready to connect with internet. Already more than 4.1 billion computing online devices are using IP address and that’s why soon there will be shortage of IPv4 addresses. As we know IPv4 is of 32 bits. So it can provide 2^32 IP addresses total around 4.2 billion.

To overcome this limitation we have IPv6 Addresses. IPv6 is of 128 bits. It is 4 times of the IPv4 in bits size, total IP addresses up to 340 trillion trillion trillion.
With IPv6, we can assign 5 x 1028 IP addresses per person on the Earth planet.

Key advantages & benefits of IPv6:

Enhanced Security

Extra layer of security added into the protocol. IPv6 Packet header consists of Encapsulated Security Payload (ESP) means encryption of packets & Authentication Header (AH) means authentication of the sender of packets. These two parameters take care of privacy & security of packets transmitted over network.

Optimization of protocol

Some disadvantages of IPv4 are removed from IPv6 like unnecessary fragmentation and headers. IPv6 made up of best things from IPv4 & excluding minor flaws of IPv4.

End-to-End Connectivity as well as Traceability

Many organizations implements Network Address Translation (NAT) which is used in IPv4 networks that allows several computers to connect a public network using the same public IPv4 address. Because of NAT we are not able to trace packet end to end. If we are using IPv6 then there is no need of NAT & a packet can be traced from ultimate source to ultimate destination.

Is there a commend sim card router support IPv6?

As a typical network device, sim card router requires support IPv6. In market not all sim card router can support IPv6, meanwhile your carrier’s SIM card should support IPv6. You can consider E-Lins Technology’s sim card router which already support IPv6. If your M2&IoT projects require IPv6 feature, then you can spend some time to have a short check with E-Lins Technology for IPv6 sim card router.